JandaO

What were your first impressions of Italy?
Where you immediately enamored or did you grow to love it.

Eloise

I loved it from the moment I stepped off the train in Verona. I walked to the market and bought blood oranges for the first time. Verona was the first stop of a six-week tour of Italy, more years ago than I would like to think.

christy1

Italy was the first solo trip I ever took, and I flew to Rome, so on arriving at the train station I felt a bit overwhelmed with how busy it was. Busy, noisy, a bit dirty, I guess those were my first jet lagged impressions. I spent a couple months by myself there and grew to have a love-hate relationship. There is much to love but I got REALLY sick of men hitting on me, of train strikes (which were frequent) and of various other annoyances.

I've been back since then and it is now probably my favorite country to travel to.

Statia

Florence took my breath away upon first sight. Venice stole my heart twice. Rome only reinforced that I adore Italy.

nessundorma

Having lived abroad in other countries, I came into Italy the first time through Tuscany and I think because I was been raised in Southern California, felt rather disappointed and thought it had been terribly overrated to me, since much of the landscape, lovely as it was, seemed familiar to me and not special to me. I also disliked Siena terribly, despite its art treasures, because I felt it was a dark and ominous, walled in place. My first intoduction to an Italian "big city" was Venice and it was so filled with silly American tourists behaving like jerks it almost made me sad to see how a city like that could be so abused.

But then I passed through Milano, which is a city that almost all American tourists think is a waste of time, and I thought it was wonderful in many ways. I began to wonder if maybe I went to the places most American tourists DON'T think are the "must-sees," I might find something more to my liking. And this strategy has actually worked out really well for me!

I count Perugia, Sicily, Ravenno, Torino, Liguria and Lago di Garda and still Milano among my favorite Italian destinations, and I have found those parts of Le Marche I've visited to have memorable food, towns and natural beauty. Of the "big 3", I probably actually enjoy being in Firenze more than I do the others, and when in Rome, I try to do as the Romans do and avoid San Pietro and its environs, prefering more residential areas.

tcreath

I love Italy but my first impression was not a great one. We took an overnight train from Vienna to Florence. When we got off the train I was immediately hit on by a man who worked at the train station, while my husband was standing next to me, and as we proceeded out of the train station there were a bunch of creepy people hanging out in front of it. That being said, it was 6:00 in the morning and I didn't get a lot of sleep on the overnight train so I was exhausted and disoriented.

I absolutely love Rome, and I love Tuscany and Umbria. Florence is not my favorite city. I find in Florence what many see in Rome; dirty, chaotic, and I felt slightly claustrophobic the whole time I was there. The city certainly is beautiful and a must for the renaissance fans, and the views from Piazzale Michaelango are splendid, but its just not for me. We left for Rome after a few days and that's when I started loving Italy.

Tracy

sandi_travelnut

I love how life is centered around food, family and friends. Lunches are long, the pace is slow (except the traffic) and they just seem to have no worries. I think the place where I fell in love was standing on top of the tower at San Gigminano and looking at the rolling hills of Tuscany while the fog rolled in and covered the ground.

wliwl

I loved all the TALKING. I've never been someplace where so many people were all talking at once. It was great.

nessundorma

wliwl,

If that's what you enjoy -- and I do too! -- you must visit Perugia at dusk, whenever gathers on the main street at the top of Perugia and talks. It's several thousand people. It's a roar -- without any car traffic at all. Likewise, there is a small town in Le Marche called Ascoli Piceno which has a particularly nice central piazza where the entire town gathers each day at the cocktail hours, and the sound of everybody in town talking to each other is really delightful.

Another place where I enjoyed hearing everybody talking was on the island of Burano in the Venetian lagoon. I happened to be there Christmas eve, and everybody had come out into the main street to show off their families and give each other season's greetings.

Traviata

I loved Italy before I ever visited there...my heritage is Italian and when I was a very little girl, my grandparents, who lived with us, talked with great longing of their homeland...they helped me to see it with their stories and their music, their food and their wine....by the time I actually arrived, it was as if I had always been there...one day I went to sleep in the USA and one day I awakened in Italy...everything was waiting for me and I knew it from my heart and my memories..I love it and long for it when I am not there...my dear grandparents taught me well...

knoxvillecouple

I don't count what I experienced in Italy my first time (Naples, Pompeii, Amalfi Coast, and Rome) - I was not quite 15 years old and traveling with parents and an older sister. It was "neat" but I wasn't blown away.

Almost 30 years later, I was on a business trip to Vienna, with wife along for the ride, and we took a night train from Vienna to Venice. I'll never forget going outside S. Lucia and seeing the Grand Canal - I'd been transported to another world. We stayed in Venice for 3 nights, doing the "must sees" and finding some of them by getting lost and just wandering around.

We were back to Italy last summer (in a villa with friends in Umbria for a week with daytrips to Florence, Orvieto, Perugia, Assisi) and a couples of days/nights each in Positano, Capri and Rome. I loved them all, but I was most struck by some of the even smaller towns we visited in Umbria - Montecchio in particular.

We're going again this June on a Med cruise as our daughter's graduation present - so visits to Venice (with 4 days pre-cruise), Naples, Rome and Florence.

I simply can't get enough, even though the budget will wear out sooner rather than later. Particularly if Delta goes belly-up, since there will go our FF tickets to Europe.

KC

amyb

My first trip was to the Amalfi Coast, which was phenomenal. However, the ride out of Naples airport and toward the coast was not attractive and we both wondered what the hell we'd gotten into. After about 2 minutes off the bus in Sorrento, we were in love with Italy. And I've been back 4 times in 5 years to Florence, Rome and Tuscany and next month Venice.

suze

I have only visited Venice (twice) which is an amazing city. That said, I found train travel and general logistics a bit more difficult in Italy then the rest of my trips (but this compares to France and Switzerland). So neither love or hate but I did find it very different.

DejaVu

My first Italian experience was in Bologna. I had been in Munich before that, which wasn't a great experience (rainy, cold, etc). Took train into Bologna; arrived at night, it was raining, couldn't see much.

The next morning though, I woke up and opened the window shutters to a bright, beautiful day and a view across the city to the hills beyond. The morning air had a marvelous smell of pastries and coffee, church bells were ringing, and the day seemed filled with the promise of adventure.

That's when I fell in love with Italy, and every new place I went afterwards just made me love it more!

mel_hunt

My first impression of of Italy was the airport in Rome. Not a good impression! Busy, dirty and confusing. It didn't get much better from there, as we were almost immediatly ensnarled in a traffic jam (the crush, they call it), complete with swarms of Vespas buzzing past our bus.

BUT: after settling into our hotel, having a chance to walk around a little and begin taking in the awesome power the city has, I realized that this was an experience unlike one I'd ever had before and the minor annoyances were insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

Our next stop was Florence. If I thought ROme was grand, it was only because I had yet to stand in the shadow of the Duomo, or to walk the same streets and passages of Leonardo, Galileo, Machiavelli, the Medici, and so many others.

I cannot express in this small space the impact Florence has had on me. In some ways, I haven't left Florence, for it's sights and scents permanently reside in my heart. I visited in 1999 and upon my return home, have devoted a considerable number of my waking hours to the study of the Italian Renaissance. I have the pleasure of visiting again in just a few short weeks--I'm so excited! Walking as you will through all that history, it can't help but have an impact on you.

JandaO

These replies are wonderful. Travel evokes such passion. I have a feeling my sisters first trip to Italy will be amazing...

lobo_mau

I travelled a little everywhere, including spots where most of you wouldn't venture and the only 2 robbery attempts I was victim in my lifetime were in Rome. I know it's unfair to extract general rules from particular experiences, but this the image I have of Italy.

CRAZY4TRAVEL

Everyone experiences travel differently and will take away a different impression..one person to the next. Italy and France are my two favorite countries. It was love at first sight for me. Florence is not on the top of my list...I too felt it to be dirty and claustrophobic (It is not without its merit though as there are many masterpieces of art and architechure there)...not that Rome is a clean city but it is an amazing treasure trove exposed in every nook and cranny out in the open for everyone to see. Rome is a great city of Piazza's with beautiful fountains...just sit and people watch for an hour which eating some of the best Gelati on the planet. I loved Venice which is like no other place on earth. It is interesting to see how the locals live...I saw someone moving from a 3rd storey apartment...they had a conveyor belt to bring down the furniture and a moving boat was waiting for them a short distance away...just a small thing but interesting to see. I have been to the Five Cinque Terre towns...so lovely...Amalfi Coast..lovely again...Sicily...amazing ruins and my next trip will be Tuscany and Umbria. I have seen so many paintings and photos of those two areas that I know I am in Love before even stepping a foot there. Travel is what you make it...if your glass is half empty...you will find fault with many things...but if your glass is half full...you will likely see the facination and beauty Italy has to offer. Your sister will have to decide which she will be...I hope she will be the latter.

RufusTFirefly

My first trip to Italy was in the fall of 1959 or 60 with my parents, one of my cousins and her parents. My father was stationed in Bamberg, Germany at the time, and we all went on a 2-week camping vacation through Bavaria, Austria, and mainly Italy.

Well, it was all pretty much a blur to me--as were most of our family vacations. Dad was (and still is) a real "seat-of-the-pants" traveler who could never be accused of overplanning (or even planning much at all) a vacation.

As a result, many of the afternoons were spent tracking down a good campsite that could accomodate our 1956 Buick Special, small travel caravan for the women, and our GI-issue tent for the guys.

To top it all off, both my father and uncle are what could be termed "ADD" travelers. So we had just a few hours in Venice (rented a watertaxi and never set foot near any sights--though the boatride was fun). Florence was a drive-shooting affair (photo shooting that is).

We were allowed time to take the UN-regulation mandated photos of each of us in turn holding up or pushing over the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Somewhere along the way in this portion of the trip I saw my first topless ladies at a beach, and we encountered the really angry woman with a knife chasing her husband or boyfriend. So at least that part of the trip was worthwhile.

I couldn't tell you what we did in Rome, except I do remember there was a big traffic circle with several lanes. My uncle was driving and managed to get the Buick with trailer in tow into the innermost lane--and couldn't get back out. We were surrounded by swarms of Fiats and "Belly buttons" zipping around in all directions--a behemoth road monster beset by lilliputian motorized gnats. Evidently, we eventually got out of there, and immediately hightailed it out of Dodge (in a Chevy).

After that, my big memory is several bottles of wine falling out of the car trunk when we were inspected at some border on the way home.

My memories of Italy were somewhat chaotic and limited until I went back for a real vacation several years later. Subsequent trips over the decades have resulted in true enjoyment of some parts of and many experiences in Italy.

wliwl

Rufus: That was really funny. Thanks.

nessundorma: Thanks for the talking tips! Seeing as I live in a family of all boys (well, except my dog) I am conversation deprived! I'm taking Italian lessons - maybe I can get in on a few of those conversations on my next visit!